This weekend’s annual TYR Invitational hosted by Northwestern will pit several teams against one another in a competitive three-day contest.
Bowling Green and Illinois-Chicago are two of the main opponents NU is set to race at the Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center.
Coach Jimmy Tierney said the invitational is a good opportunity for him to straighten out lineups for future meets.
“We’re still trying to figure out some of the events for champs,” he said. “And this meet will give us a good idea of who will swim what.”
Tierney added that four girls have already qualified for the U.S. Nationals meet coming up in early December. He hopes that the TYR invitational will give other swimmers a shot at making the competitive cut times for the national level meet.
Freestyler Annika Winsnes said she’s very exited for the invitationals, but the freshman expressed some concerns as well.
“It will be harder for us to keep up our energy for three days,” she said.
Still, Winsnes looks positively at the rest of the season. She said this weekend’s meet will “be a good test” of what the Wildcats are capable of.
The freshman added that she is anticipating the upcoming training trip at Arizona State, which will be the first time away since the start of her college career. The nine days of intense training sessions will begin as soon as finals week is over.
“We can really focus on being with each other,” Winsnes added. “But it’s going to be a lot of hard work.”
She said she particularly looks forward to swimming in an outdoor pool, something she always did before coming to NU.
Freshman Katie Branch said she’ll turn her focus to the training trip after this weekend’s competition.
The drop taper at the past few practices should help her performance at the three-day contest, the swimmer added.
During taper, Branch said, “It’s more about quality (of yardage), not quantity.”
The breaststroker said she reacts well to taper and hopes to have some top swims this weekend.
An Arizona native, she also expressed excitement to travel to Arizona State since it is near her hometown.
“I’ve heard the trip is a lot of hard training, but it sounds like a lot of fun, too,” she said.
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